[alaskabliss]

I recently installed a Maxtor SATA 250GB in the second hard drive stall of my dual 1.8 G5 (Jaguar 10.3.4) The installation guide was obtuse for MAC users referring us to the Apple.com support site.

I installed according to directions there and the new HD seem to work fine intially, but several hours later, it no longer would save any of the work I had done (was using FCP 4.5) It would also not accept file transfers - a warning dialog said that some files had names that were too long. It would not even accept files with short names, i.e. "File" - saying the names were too long.

Moreover, it would not allow me to erase the drive using Disk Utility and start over (the drive would not "unmount".) Finally, I shut down rebooted and used Disk utility again. This time, it allowed me to erase the volume. I then partioned it and renamed it.

It seems to be working again, HOWEVER, when I went to Disk Utility to verify it shows that its SMART status is FAILING!

SO... thinking I was missing some installation step, I delved into the MAXTOR site and found conflicting info between the manufacturer and Apple.

MAXTOR says the drive needs to be set up as a SLAVE to the original drive using the IDE cable provided with the new drive. According to the MAC support info, it specifically says to ONLY use the cable connections that are inside the G5.

Well...I actually tried connecting the 2 drives using the cable provided by MAXTOR and when I rebooted, the G5 couldn't figure out which disk to start from (I got the flashing folding with a ? mark icon) So I disconnected and went back to using the cabling within the G5)

Other Symptoms: The Connection ID is the same as OEM HD and shows up first in the System Profiler window.

I know this is a lot of detail, but I am desparate to get some help ASAP. I'm up against a big deadline on a video documentation project and can't afford to lose much more time dinking around with this.

Thanks for your help, out there!

Laura S.
alaskabliss@alaska.com

[tooki]

There is no such thing as master and slave in SATA: it only allows one drive per controller. So I am not quite sure what you mean when you say that you used a Maxtor cable that connected two drives -- if it's a SATA drive, it's plain and simply not possible.

In the G5, you just attach the drive using the cables that are already routed through into the hard drive bays.

If the drive's SMART status is failing, that's not a good sign at all, and is probable reason to be able to get the drive replaced outright.

tooki

[alaskabliss]

That may well be true, but certainly a disappointing possibility. I am still hopeful that it is an installation or formatting problem.

Should both HDs have the same Connection ID numbers? Both the Main and Second are reading 0.

THX - Laura

[tooki]

Yes, because the connection ID refers to the device IDs on each bus. Since only one device is allowed on each bus (and they start counting at 0), and each one is on a separate bus, that's why they have the same number. On a G5, if you have not added extra cards or cabling, it is not possible to add devices in a way that could cause an addressing conflict.

tooki

[alaskabliss]

Thanks for the new knowledge. I've learned a lot of other things about OSX by looking around the board.

FYI - I called MAXTOR and they are sending a new hard drive this week. I'll be back in business...I hope!

Thanks for the help.

Laura